Senior Solutions Architect

defenseunicorns; United States; Remote; USD 149,000 - 201,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Health coverage

Retirement plan

Stock options

Home-office budget

Paid leave and holidays

Parental leave

Training or conference reimbursement

Job summary

Defense Unicorns is seeking a seasoned engineering leader to guide technical customer engagements from discovery through delivery while leading an engineering team. You will design solutions, work hands-on with secure software, Kubernetes-based packages, and CI/CD pipelines, and contribute to demonstrations and content that enhance engagements.

The role requires a strong customer-facing background in defense, hands-on full-stack leadership, and the ability to translate requirements into

Qualifications

• U.S. citizenship required and Secret security clearance.
• 7+ years of software engineering experience, including at least one year in a management role.
• At least five years in customer-facing defense engagements and four years working with full-stack development teams.
• Experience leading and developing engineering teams, and mentoring or training others.
• Strong solution architecture skills across cloud and on-premises environments, with the ability to translate customer needs into clear technical designs.
• Experience with Kubernetes, containers, Helm, continuous delivery, and Agile practices.

Responsibilities

• Serve as a trusted technical contact, understand customer goals and constraints, and recommend suitable solutions.
• Lead and mentor engineers, support their growth, and communicate their technical strengths and contributions.
• Help frame customer needs, manage proof-of-concept work, and create demonstrations and technical content.
• Build and maintain CI/CD pipelines; build, deploy, test, and troubleshoot Kubernetes-related bundles and packages.
• Improve team processes and collaborate across functions on research and customer engagement strategy.
• Research market and technology developments to inform solution and product opportunities.

Skills

Kubernetes

Leadership

Cloud & on-prem architectures

Customer-facing engagements

Software engineering

CI/CD pipelines

Agile practices

Tools

Kubernetes

Helm

CI/CD tooling

Job description

Role overview

Guide technical customer engagements from early discovery and proof of concept through longer-term delivery, while leading and developing an engineering team. The role combines customer advising and solution design with hands-on work on secure software delivery, Kubernetes-based packages, and continuous delivery pipelines. It also includes contributing to demonstrations, technical content, and improvements to how the team supports engagements.

Responsibilities

• Serve as a trusted technical contact, understand customer goals and constraints, and recommend suitable solutions.
• Lead and mentor engineers, support their growth, and communicate their technical strengths and contributions.
• Help frame customer needs, manage proof-of-concept work, and create demonstrations and technical content.
• Build and maintain CI/CD pipelines; build, deploy, test, and troubleshoot Kubernetes-related bundles and packages.
• Improve team processes and collaborate across functions on research and customer engagement strategy.
• Research market and technology developments to inform solution and product opportunities.

Requirements

• U.S. citizenship is required; the position requires a Secret security clearance and approximately 25% travel.
• 7+ years of software engineering experience, including at least one year in a management role.
• At least five years in customer-facing defense engagements and four years working with full-stack development teams.
• Experience leading and developing engineering teams, and mentoring or training others.
• Strong solution architecture skills across cloud and on-premises environments, with the ability to translate customer needs into clear technical designs.
• Experience with Kubernetes, containers, Helm, continuous delivery, and Agile practices.

Nice to have

• Familiarity with the CNCF ecosystem, infrastructure or cloud-native tooling, and programming languages such as Python or JavaScript.
• Full-stack development experience and comfort evaluating technical information and explaining trade-offs.

Benefits and work setup

• Remote within the United States, with a stated salary range of $148,750–$201,250 USD, dependent on experience.
• Benefits include health coverage, a retirement plan, stock options, a home-office budget, paid leave and holidays, parental leave, and training or conference reimbursement.